Frugality and Roman economic thinking in Varro’s «Rerum rusticarum»

Neville Morley

Abstract:

The Roman agronomist Varro talks of frugalitas and related terms only rarely, but a concern with the proper control of expenditure in managing an estate, embedded in a broader discourse of tradition and innovation and acceptable behaviour for an elite landowner, permeates his account. This article considers his use of such ideas in order to shed light on ‘Roman economic thinking’, and its sophisticated exploration of competing value systems, in the late Republic.